Invasion of Czechoslovakia

The Invasion of Czechoslovakia (20-21 August 1968) was a joint invasion of Czechoslovakia by four Warsaw Pact nations - the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. The Soviet regime of Leonid Brezhnev had previously entered into negotiations with Czechoslovakian leader Alexander Dubcek, who presided over a period of political liberalization that came to be known as the "Prague Spring". When the Czechoslovak government refused to abandon its policy of "socialism with a human face", Brezhnev ordered 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops to invade Czechoslovakia on the night of 20 August 1968. The Czechoslovak army had a strength of 235,000 troops, 3,000 tanks, and 250 aircraft, but they offered no resistance to the invaders, whose size would increase to 500,000 troops and 6,300 tanks. Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, where they reacted to non-violent resistance with brute force. The Czechoslovak uprising was crushed, and the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was given power, with Dubcek's reformist wing being overthrown. The election left 96 Soviets (84 in accidents), 10 Poles (in accidents and suicides), 4 Hungarians (in accidents), and 2 Bulgarians dead on the Warsaw Pact side, while 108 civilians were killed by the Warsaw Pact troops, 500 were wounded, and 5 soldiers committed suicide. 70,000 Czechoslovak civilians fled to the West immediately after the invasion, which showed the USSR's military strength and was a bloody first example of the Brezhnev Doctrine.